All They Can Care For

Excerpt from ‘With Full Purpose of Heart’, by Dallin H. Oaks, Pub. 2002:1

President Kimball said, “It is an act of extreme selfishness for a married couple to refuse to have children when they are able to do so.” When married couples postpone childbearing until after they have satisfied their mutual goals, the mere passage of time assures that they seriously reduce their potential to participate in furthering our Heavenly Father’s plan for all his spirit children. Faithful Latter-day Saints cannot afford to look upon children as an interference with what the world calls “self-fulfillment.” Our covenants with God and the ultimate purpose of life are tied up in those little ones who require airtime, outlive, and our sacrifice.

How many children should a couple have? All they can care for! Of Course, to care for children means more than simply giving them life. Children must be loved, nurtured, taught, fed, clothed, housed, and well started in their capacities to be good parents themselves. Exercising faith in God’s promises to bless them when they are keeping his commandments, many LDS parents have large families. Others seek but are not blessed with children or with the number of children they desire. In a matter as intimate as this, we should not judge one another.